# Development and organization of brain-wide neuronal ensemble circuits underlying memory and decision making

> **NIH NIH R35** · YALE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $568,663

## Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract
Episodic memory and memory-guided decision making are quintessential cognitive functions
ensuring our identity, successful everyday life, and survival. Memories have a strong spatial and
temporal sequential component. The field of memory research has long used rodent spatial
navigation on linear environments as a framework for studying memory encoding and
consolidation. Large-scale electrophysiological recordings from the adult rodent brain performed
during animal navigation in novel environments have established that neuronal ensemble
computations within and between the hippocampus and medial entorhinal cortex (MEC) are
critical for the encoding and consolidation of spatial memories. During memory-guided decision-
making tasks, the hippocampus and mPFC neurons re-engage in coordinated computations and
communication, particularly during the successful trials. Optimal investigation of memory and
decision-making processes require simultaneous interrogation of large ensembles of neurons
from interconnected brain areas such as MEC and the hippocampus, and hippocampus and
mPFC, respectively. Without exception, these experiments have been performed exclusively in
adult animals where large neuronal samples could be obtained in freely-behaving rodents. Yet
these findings in the adult brain raise new critical, still unanswered questions: When and how do
coordinated activities between hippocampal neuronal ensembles and their
upstream/downstream MEC emerge during postnatal life to support encoding and consolidation
of long-term memories? When and how do mPFC neuronal ensemble patterns critical for
decision making mature and how does their coordination with the hippocampus develop during
postnatal life? In this proposal, I will investigate the age- and experience-dependent early-
postnatal development of neuronal ensemble patterns known to be significant for spatial
memory and navigation and decision making in the adult rat. The chronic, large-scale
electrophysiological recordings will be performed over several days in freely-behaving and
sleeping developing and adult rats simultaneously from interconnected brain areas, MEC and
the hippocampus and the hippocampus and mPFC, respectively. These experiments will define
the principles and stages of coordinated development across connected brain areas, their age
and experience-dependence and the developmental critical periods specific to each brain area
investigated.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10835095
- **Project number:** 5R35NS132342-02
- **Recipient organization:** YALE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** GEORGE DRAGOI
- **Activity code:** R35 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $568,663
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-05-01 → 2031-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10835095

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10835095, Development and organization of brain-wide neuronal ensemble circuits underlying memory and decision making (5R35NS132342-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10835095. Licensed CC0.

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